Telecom-REQUEST@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (JSol) (06/16/88)
TELECOM Digest Friday, June 10, 1988 7:48PM
Volume 8, Issue 97
Today's Topics:
Telex by modem
Re: T1 mux
COCOTs demand share of local telcos' profits
N.J. prefix shifts
Re: T1 mux
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Date: Thu, 9 Jun 88 09:49:41 EDT
From: Jerry Glomph Black <@ll-vlsi.arpa:black@ll-micro>
Subject: Telex by modem
>From: Zalman Stern <zs01+@andrew.cmu.edu>
>Subject: Telex access via dialup modem.
>
>I need some information on access to telex service via a dialup modem from
>either an IBM PC or an Apple Macintosh. I was wondering if anybody out there
>has any experience with services of this nature. I am interested in hearing
>about:
>
> - The telex system served. (I think there is more than one, but I am not
>sure.)
> - Protocols and baud rates supported.
> - Availability.
> - Cost.
>
>The system must be such that it stores telexes for later retrieval when someone
>dials up the service. (That is, the modem cannot stay attached continuously.)
>
>
>Sincerely,
>Zalman Stern
>Internet: zs01+@andrew.cmu.edu Usenet: I'm soooo confused...
There are probably numerous ways to do this, but the way I've used is to
subscribe to MCI Mail, where you in effect are assigned your own telex mailbox.
Messages are retrieved exactly as you want it, they are held for you to read
them( A nuisance unless you like checking continuously). The last time I
checked, there's an $18.00 annual mailbox charge (including the usual MCI Mail
"privileges"), and the charge for sending telexes is pretty modest. I recall
a letter to the UK was $3.00 or so. It is definitely available in Pissburgh
and the usual modem baud rates are supported.
JG Black, black@micro@ll-vlsi.arpa
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Date: Thursday, 9 June 1988 12:11:42 EDT
From: Eugene.Hastings@morgul.PSC.EDU
Subject: Re: T1 mux
If you're just carrying data, why use a mux at all? Several vendors make
multiprotocol routers (cisco, Proteon, Wellfleet, etc.) or bridges
(Vitalink, Wellfleet?) that can connect to a full bandwidth T1.
If you do need a mux, I can vouch for Timeplex. They seem to be the
Rolls-Royce of the market (they're not cheap), but they have great
flexibility (you can get different assortments of synchronous ans
asynchronous interfaces, and even change the alotted bandwidth on the fly),
and have been very reliable.
You may also be able to pick the brains (if you haven't already done so) of
Jack Hahn and Mike Petry, both at UMd, involved with wide area TCP/IP
networking.
Gene
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From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert)
Date: 9 Jun 88 07:56
Subject: COCOTs demand share of local telcos' profits
Mike Berger at the University of Illinois writes:
>I don't see that the Bell operating companies have any right to fight them.
>It's a competitive market now.
I think he's partially right; we, the users of pay phones are the ones who
have to fight them, because they only mean *higher* pay phone charges for us.
Remember that what is being competed for is the ability to return the highest
profit to the establishment allowing the pay phone to be placed. Here in
Massachusetts that means that the local telcos are petitioning for the right
to **raise** their payphone rates in order to be able to compete.
But the telcos do have a right, and in fact a *duty*, to inform the consumers
that using telco calling cards at COCOTs may result in higher charges. It's
a strange world when a consumer uses a local telco calling card at one phone
and gets charged the expected rate by the telco and at another phone and gets
charged five times that rate, with the bill still rendered by the telco! The
telco really has a duty to explain what's going on here.
The local telcos also have a right to fight motions such as the following
one filed by the "Massachusetts Payphone Association." It asks for a share of
the profits from calls such as collect calls and New England Telephone credit
card calls made from COCOTs and handled by New England Telephone's operators.
Using the following logic, why shouldn't I also get a share of N.E.T.'s profits
for calls I let visitors make from my home or office telephone?
In Re New England Telephone Company Petition for an Advisory Ruling as to the
Competetive Nature of Public Pay Telephone Service, D.P.U. 88-45.
The Massachusetts Payphone Association ("Association") through its attorneys,
hereby requests that the Department of Public Utilities ("Department") schedule
for hearing the issues it and the Department raised in the above captioned
proceeding, as expeditiously as possible.
As evidenced from the Association's comments in this proceeding, New England
Telephone Company's ("NET") current charges for directory assistance, as well
as its failure to compensate providers of privately owned pay telephones for
the origination of nonsent-paid intraLATA calls, are of considerable importance
to the viability of the privately owned pay telephone industry in Massachusetts.
Each day that these issues go unresolved costs the private pay telephone
provider untold directory assistance charges, as well as losses in the form of
opportunity costs which they cannot recover when users placing nonsent-paid
calls deter callers who would have paid by coin from placing a call.
The situation is further exacerbated by the elimination of compensation from
intraLATA and interLATA nonsent-paid calls paid to the private pay telephone
provider pending certification and tariffing of competetive operator service
providers. Operator service providers recognized the entitlement of pay
telephone providers to reasonable compensation for providing the facilities
over which "0" calls are originated. Recognizing that the greater percentage
of nonlocal calls from pay telephones are nonsent-paid, this lack of compen-
sation has turned many a private provider into an eleemosynary institution,
offering the availability of a pay telephone at no charge. If the increased
availability of pay telephones is to continue, this aberration in compensation
to the private pay telephone provider must be remedied posthaste.
The Association therefore urges the Department to schedule a prehearing
conference on these issues, and to schedule the earliest possible date for
hearing consistent with the Department's public notice obligations.
Respectfully submitted, MASSACHUSETTS PAYPHONE ASSOCIATION
* * * * * * * * * * B O Y C O T T C O C O T S * * * * * * * * * * *
/john
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Date: Thu, 9 Jun 88 17:01:19 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@BRL.ARPA>
Subject: N.J. prefix shifts
201-243 in Newark, NJ is apparently no longer in use. According to recent
call guides, 243 appears in Princeton, NJ (609 area), a local call from some
201-area points. Remember, local calls AND your entire area code are reached
with only 7 digits from most NJ points.
201-987 was listed back in 1976 as Little Falls (near Paterson). It was not
in use in mid-1982. Now, 987 appears in Princeton (609 area, see above).
Also, a recent list of area-code prefixes sent to me via email shows 2 such
prefixes in Toms River, NJ (area 201), a local call from Barnegat (in 609);
thus, part of 609 (which does require 1 before an areacode) is local to some
area-code prefixes.
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Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 11:32:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Martin Weiss <mw3s+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: T1 mux
I would suggest you examine the relevant Datapro Report. They often have
summarized reviews of user responses to multiplexers. Data Communications
magazine also carries these reviews of equipment. I don't know when their most
recent survey of T1 Multiplexers was published. Although these are not
scientific surveys, they do provide guidelines to product performance over a
wide range of users.
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End of TELECOM Digest
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